In Boston, the firing of Felipe Alou last week seemed to tie the whole thing up in a nice, neat package.

Now that Alou was free to be hired elsewhere, when, many Red Sox fans wanted to know, would he be replacing Jimy Williams? The next day? By the weekend? Surely, before the All-Star break, no?

Center stage

Tampa Bay's Albie Lopez was supposed to be, along with David Wells, the best available starter at the trading deadline. Lopez, who's eligible for free agency this fall, was supposed to bring plenty in return for the moribund Devil Rays, a team which can use all the help they can get these days. But Lopez's stock continues to fall as his losing streak has reached six straight games. He was pounded again Tuesday night in Toronto, waking up the bats of a Toronto team which had lost 12 of its previous 14 at home. After starting the season 3-2 with a 2.60 ERA in April, Lopez has since lost five straight and given up 35 runs in his last 31 2/3 innings. Worse, his strikeout total for the season is alarmingly low -- 43 K's in 76 2/3 innings -- for someone who can throw in the mid 90s. Granted, Lopez has been hobbled by an assortment of injuries to his knee, groin and thumb which have limited his effectiveness and altered his mechanics. But after working with pitching coach Bill Fischer to correct some of these flaws, Lopez pronounced himself fit before Tuesday's start. Then, he went out and got hammered for seven earned runs in five innings pitched. "His velocity was back to where it was when he was pitching well," said beleaguered Devil Rays manager Hal McRae. "So that was encouraging." If you say so, Hal. -- Sean McAdam

Outside Boston, the reaction is a little different. Summarized neatly and not so profanely, it goes something like this: "What the hell is wrong with those people?"

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Jimy, where reality and accomplishment have nothing to do with anything, and a feeding frenzy, fueled by talk radio, has people screaming for the head of a manager in first place.

"What does he have to do?" said a scout for an opposing team recently, recognizing Williams' plight. "He's got a two-man team there, and they're ahead of the Yankees, without Nomar (Garciaparra). Shouldn't that be enough?"

Apparently not. Some are outraged by his penchant for lineup changes, not recognizing that Williams platoons not out of habit, but necessity. He's attempted to jump start Troy O'Leary and Dante Bichette, but neither has produced consistently. Bichette has just two homers and 12 RBI in 94 at-bats.

They're enraged by his adherence to pitch counts, and point to his admittedly curious decision to lift Pedro Martinez after just 90 pitches and six innings while leading the Yankees, 4-3, Monday, a game they went on to lose, 7-6.

But Williams -- and trusted aide de camp Joe Kerrigan -- are merely recognizing history and doing their best to make sure it doesn't repeat. In each of his three previous seasons in Boston, Martinez has broken done at mid-season.

Finally, Williams isn't sufficiently glib for the camera-and-microphone crowd. Dave Perkins of the Toronto Star, who observed Williams' first managerial go-round, noted last weekend that Williams can still come off like "a clenched fist."

Lost in all this is that the Red Sox are leading their division at the one-third pole, and that arguably their best player is still a month away from joining the lineup.

If the Sox's place in the standings wasn't enough to dissuade the theory that Williams was about to be sacrificed in order to facilitate a Dan Duquette-Felipe Alou reunion, how about this -- Duquette is currently every bit the lame duck that Williams is, without a deal past this year.

If Duquette can't straighten out his own proposed contract extension -- which has been under discussion, without resolition, since March -- what authority would he have to give Alou a three-year deal.

Alou was one of the game's highest-paid managers in Montreal, earning $2 million annually. If he chooses to manage again -- no sure thing, say some close to him -- he would clearly command a raise that would pay him close to $3 million per over three seasons.

Would CEO John Harrington give Duquette permission to offer a three-year, $9 million package with the team up for sale? More to the point, having gone through a bad experience in Montreal, where owner Jeffrey Loria systematically undermined him, would Alou step into a situation not knowing who his boss or owner would be when next season began?

Then again, maybe none of this should be surprising. After a season in which no manager was (technically) fired over the course of six months (two managers -- Gene Lamont and Terry Francona -- were told on the final weekend that they wouldn't be returning) baseball has seen four managers get the ax in the first two months of 2001.

Gone, in order of dismissal: Larry Rothschild, Johnny Oates, John Boles, and Alou.

Add those four to the six who were cashiered after last season -- Lamont, Francona, Jim Fregosi, Davey Johnson, Jack McKeon and Buck Showalter -- and that means that one of three major-league managers has been hired in the last eight months.

The notion that a change in the dugout will turnaround a franchise's fortunes is an old one, but one that rarely proves true. In Tampa, the Devil Rays are doing the unthinkable -- playing worse under Hal McRae than they did under his predecessor. In Texas, Jerry Narron has been unable to find the pitching that Oates needed to be competitive. And it's highly unlikely that the Expos are going to play any better for Jeff Torborg than for Alou, whom many players respected and adored.

That won't stop the suggestion that additional managerial changes need to be made. Tony Muser, Bobby Valentine and Williams have all heard the whispers.

The wonder is that more GMs haven't been similarly subjected to the firing line, since they're the ones responsible for putting together the rosters that are underperforming for their managers.

Record-setting payrolls have only increased payrolls even further up, and the victims are the men in the dugout with so little control of their own fate.

From the scout's seat
Three-most improved teams so far:

1. Twins. "Perfect team for that dome. Tom Kelly has taught them well and the pitching has come along faster than I thought it would."

2. Phillies. "I had doubts about the bullpen, but they've been fine so far. I wonder how they'll do without (Mike) Lieberthal, but Larry Bowa has made a big difference."

3. Cubs. "No so reliant on Sammy and the home run. Kerry Wood has looked like he did before the surgery and the rest of the staff is deeper."

Up and down
Up: Jim Thome
It wasn't long ago that Thome, who had averaged better than 35 homers over the last five seasons, was finding himself being platooned at first base. His average dipped under .200, and suddenly there were questions about whether the Indians -- suddenly more payroll-conscious -- would be picking up his option for 2002.

	Jim Thome First base Cleveland Indians Profile
	2001 SEASON STATISTICS GM HR RBI R SB AVG 52 14 36 34 0 .288

Then, Thome came to life.

In the last week, he hit .591 (13-for-22) with four homers and eight RBI. Two of those homers came in the same game against Roger Clemens. One of them made him the Tribe's all-time home run leader, zooming past one-time teammate Albert Belle, with 243.

That's a pretty lofty achievement for someone playing for a franchise that's in its 100th season.

"I can't imagine not playing baseball for the Indians," said Thome.

Neck-and-neck with the Twins for first place in the AL Central and happy to have some sock back in their lineup, the Indians are probably feeling the same way.

Down: Tampa Bay
Just when it seemed like it couldn't get any worse for Rays, it does. In spades.

The Rays have lost six straight. Actually, "lost" doesn't do them justice. Tampa has been outscored by 61-16 in that span, making the average loss something like 10-3. What are they trying to do -- win over Buccaneers fans who are accustomed to losing games by that score?

Tampa is like a baseball welcome wagon. There's nothing like the sight of the Rays to cheer up a slumping team. The A's fattened up at home against them, and now the Blue Jays are threatening to do the same.

Look at it this way: If they keep going like this -- they're on a pace to set an American League mark of 119 losses -- they'll end any talk of being one of the teams eliminated.

Who wants to get rid of so many guaranteed wins on their schedule?

The List

With interleague play beginning Friday, here's a look at the five best rivalries that exist between NL and AL teams: 1) New York Mets vs. New York Yankees: OK, so the Mets' poor start has ended any talk for now about a Subway Series, Part II. And Roger Clemens not pitching in Shea Stadium takes away some of the drama. But it's unlikely these games will be dull. They never have been. 2) Chicago Cubs vs. Chicago White Sox: Another crosstown showdown, this year with a surprising twist. Most Windy City fans expected the White Sox to dominate the pairing this year, after leading the AL in wins. Instead, the South Siders have slumped horribly, done in by injuries, and the Cubs are the surprise of the NL. 3) Cincinnati Reds vs. Cleveland Indians: The Battle for Ohio isn't very even this year, with the Reds battling to get out of the NL Central cellar. But these are two of the oldest franchises in the game, and the passion and history run deep. 4) San Francisco Giants vs. Oakland A's: The complaint heard for years is that the Bay Area can't support two teams, but the interest in this series belies that. Featuring two of the game's best left-handed sluggers -- Bonds and Giambi -- and perhaps the best NL ballpark and the wost the AL has to offer. 5) Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Anaheim Angels: Go ahead -- make your gratuitious sushi and fish tacos joke. Fact is, this series has some significance -- if you're an accountant for either FOX or Disney.

Question of the week
How valuable is it for a team to have someone chasing the single-season home run record?

But in the standings, the positive bounce is often missing. Back in 1998, when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa took off after Roger Maris, the balls soared, but the Cardinals didn't.

It was more of the same again in 1999, when McGwire hit 65 for another disappointing Cardinals' squad.

Now, it's happening again with Barry Bonds. Bonds, with 31 homers, is on a pace to beat McGwire's 70-homer season, but the Giants are at .500, closer to last place than they are to first in the bunched-up NL West.

That's not Bonds' fault, of course. The Giants' pitching staff is more to blame for their mediocre season to date.

But it does make the home run seem less relevant. Remember, not since 1985 (Steve Balboni with Kansas City) has a player hit more than 35 homers all for a team which went on to win the World Series. (Last year, David Justice finished with 41, but the first 21 came with the Indians, before he was dealt to the Yankees).

The quality of the official scoring varies wildly from ballpark to ballpark, where the task is performed by a variety of individuals with varying levels of competence.

Last weekend in Toronto, the official scoring was, in a word, embarrassing. On Thursday night, two plays that should have resulted in errors for Boston's Mike Lansing were instead charitably-ruled base hits for the home team.

Worse, two errors on Jose Offerman Friday night were reversed Saturday by the official scorer when an unidentified player in the Toronto clubhouse asked for a "review" of the calls. That resulted in two hits awarded to the Blue Jays.

The two plays Friday were clearly errors by (almost) anyone's interpretation: Offerman dropped a throw for what would have been a routine force play at second, then later bounced a throw in the dirt past first baseman Brian Daubach.

Further, what does it say about the Blue Jays that, in the middle of a five-game losing streak, in a game in which they lost, they were occupied with thoughts of persuading an official scorer to change two otherwise unimportant calls?

Major League Baseball has taken steps to ensure that club officials and players don't pressure official scorers into making scoring changes, but they can't police every situation.

Once again, it might be time to review the proposal, made periodically, that baseball create five-man rotating umpiring crews with the fifth umpire, given a night off from on-field duty, serving as the official scorer.

That would free scorers from undue pressure from the home team and guarantee some sort of consistency. To do anything less, at least in some cities, is to risk making a mockery of the game.

Sean McAdam of the Providence Journal writes a major-league notebook each week during the baseball season for ESPN.com.